Monastaries of Wadi Al-Natrun

We started off the day at the Monastery of St. Marcarius where a true miracle happened. We were waiting for the monk to take us around on a tour when Cabby discovered that her camera battery was dead. She turned it off and waited until the monk got there. Then she turned it on and noticed that she had almost half battery life left! About an hour later my watch just stopped working so we rubbed the blessed camera on top of the watch and the watch started working again! It's the miracle of St. Marcarius!

This was the first monastery I had ever been too and I was amazed at how serene the compound was. It was a bright sunny day and just walking around the structure had a calming effect on us all. Every monastery has a keep which is where the monks go if they are under attack. At this particular monastery the keep is closed to the public but our good friend Dr. Gabra sweet talked the monks into letting us in! The keep is set up so that the monks could have everything they needed for months if they needed to stay there for safety. There are three different levels to this keep and each level is dedicated to a different saint, with an altar for the monks to prayer and have service at.

After wandering around the keep for a bit we had the honor of meeting the oldest monk in the monastery, Father John. Father John started out with a group of monks that lived in caves in the desert during the 1960s. After some time, the elder of his group was asked by the elder of the St. Marcarius monks to move into the monastery. They decided it was their path to move in. At that time 6 monks resided in the monastery. Today, the monastery has over 130 monks and has the distinction of having a waiting list to get in. Imagine men in the U.S. putting themselves on waiting lists to become monks. St. Marcarius also has the distinction of never having to close its doors since its inception, which was in the first century A.D.

The next monastery was located in the town of Wadi Al Natrun. As we were driving the monastery we picked up some monks who were walking there and of course Dr. Gabra knew them. I bought wine at this monastery and it was not the best. When you swirled it around it left a brown residue on the glass and tasted like a bad port. The unique thing about this monastery resides in its church. It has been discovered that the artwork was created in layers. Instead of destroying the oldest artwork to create new works, the artists created a layer of plaster over the oldest work and painted on that. Thus there are three layers of artwork from various time periods. The base layer, which would be the oldest, has been found to date back to the 8th century. Again I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of the artists. They covered up the artwork without destroying it, thus preserving it for the future.

We also got to wander about the library of recovered manuscripts. The monk who was in charge of the project showed us some of the manuscripts that had been preserved. We got see preserved papyrus leaf manuscripts and he explained the process and detail that go into preserving such things. At one point he passed around a newly bound preserved manuscript which one of my cohort dropped. There was a gasp as we all stared at the manuscript on the ground. Then all I heard was Cabby from across the room in her Texas drawl saying "I knew somebody was gonna drop that." Luckily the manuscript was fine and we escaped without damaging anymore of Egyptian history.

The final highlight of the day was getting to meet the bishop of the monastery. Dr. Gabra was trying to set up a meeting with the Pope of the Coptic Church but sadly he wasn't free on the days that we would be around. Instead the bishop of the monastery met with us and we took pictures with him.

This day emphasized the point of the trip from Dr. Gabra's eyes. By having us at these monasteries taking pictures with these monks, they are able to show that there is an interest in their work and thus they can continue to get funding for the restoration of manuscripts.

We left the monasteries and then went back to the hotel to pack because the next day we were taking a flight to Luxor!